Florida quarterly real estate report shows 30% drop in sale values vs 2021 | Florida Trend Real Estate – Florida Trend
Florida quarterly real estate report shows 30% drop in sale values vs 2021
As the South Florida housing market slowed in the final months of last year from its breakneck speed, a disconnect developed between buyers and sellers. Looking ahead, there’s a chance by midyear that homebuyers could be on equal footing with sellers in a balanced housing market. Expert say don’t, however, expect monthly home prices to fall below the prior year, because there’s still strong demand to relocate here from the Northeast, other parts of the country and Latin America. More from WFLA.
Florida legislation incentivizes more affordable housing through tax exemptions
Orlando is one of the toughest cities to rent an apartment, according to an apartment hunting website, rentcafe.com. However, some state lawmakers are working to get more affordable housing in the market. New legislation, HB 229, motivates complexes to turn their building into affordable units by giving them discounts on property tax. If the bill passes, 10 percent of the building would need to be affordable housing for the complex to receive a 75 percent cut on taxes. [Source: Spectrum News 13]
Vacation rentals are adding to South Florida’s housing crunch, study suggests
Thousands of short-term vacation rentals could be contributing to the rental crisis in South Florida, where it has become harder to find affordable places to live, according to a new study. Short-term vacation rentals might be keeping units from entering the market that could instead be used as longer-term rentals during a time when many areas in Florida wrestle with increasingly high rents and a severe shortage of affordable places to live, the study from Florida Atlantic University suggests. [Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel]
Why Florida is paying landowners for their development rights
The most recent state budget leaves the Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services flush with funds — $300 million, to be exact — to buy development rights from landowners. The state’s fiscal year 2022-2023 budget appropriated $300 million to the Rural and Family Lands Protection Program overseen by the Florida Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services. Those funds this year can be used to buy conservation easements, which are agreements between the state and landowners that prohibit future development on the land. [Source: Orlando Business Journal]
As housing market shifts, sellers are more willing to offer concessions
For homebuyers who have been waiting to get relief in today’s market, some sellers may be more willing to offer concessions during sales. The number of home sales in which there was a concession in the South Florida area jumped to 34.8%, a six percentage point increase from the year prior, according to data from RedFin. The increase comes as the dynamic between homebuyers and sellers shifts, giving buyers more power to negotiate for what they want. [Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel]
$6.8 billion
Foreign buyers picked up $6.8 billion of South Florida residential real estate between August 2021 and July 2022, according to a new report from the Miami Association of Realtors. [Source: Axios]
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› ‘High anxiety’ in Miami’s Little Haiti, after developers snap up properties at big auction
Already reeling economically from the COVID-19 pandemic, rampant real estate speculation and looming gentrification, residents and business owners in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood are now confronting a new source of worry and uncertainty: The purchase by developers of a significant slice of properties along its main commercial street.
› St. Petersburg bets on affordable housing at the Trop. Can it deliver?
Getting developers to build affordable housing is a tough sell. It means making apartments plush enough to lease to doctors and lawyers but renting them for as little as half the going market rate for the next 50 years. That math only works with hard-to-obtain subsidies from local and state government. Even then, most affordable housing projects are at best a piecemeal solution that add some 50 or so homes built on the cheapest land available.
› Prices rise in North Central Florida housing market while sales decline
The housing market in North Central Florida is cooling down, but median home prices are up. According to Florida realtors, the Gainesville housing market, which includes Alachua and Gilchrist counties, had a 27% drop in sales from December of last year. In Ocala, sales dropped about 21%. Statewide, home sales in December of 2022 dropped 36% from the same time in 2021. Housing prices, however, seem to be on the rise.
› State program to bring more temporary housing to Hurricane Ian victims
In an effort to “push through the red tape and get people what they need quicker,” Gov. Ron DeSantis is focusing on temporary housing. DeSantis announced further initiatives and funding for recovery during a press conference in Fort Myers Thursday morning, specifically highlighting the state’s own travel trailer program and desire to get more placed in Southwest Florida.
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